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Wednesday, June 24, 2015

The Cost of a Seat: California Legislators Raise More than $1,000 a Day

Great to talk to Marisa Lagos of KQED for this post.And they don’t even take into account the millions of dollars spent by independent outside groups to influence these legislative races, said campaign finance expert and Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson. Even though she studies these issues, Levinson said the numbers surprised her.

“That is an astronomical amount of money to raise every day,” she said. “It’s not just the absolute value of the money — which is high — but it takes a lot of time to raise money.”

Levinson noted that there are “only 24 hours in a day,” so fundraising must take attention away from other duties.

“You are either not sleeping or not legislating for a lot of time,” she said.

You also have to factor in campaign contribution limits, Levinson added. In 2014, legislative candidates could receive a maximum of $4,100 from an individual or business entity.

“Because we have contribution limits, you have to go to a lot of different people and ask for money to raise those amounts — so you are left, in effect, owing a lot of people,” she said. “The other thing is, who are you talking to when you are fundraising constantly? Only people who can give you money.”